This past week, Mike Vandervort published the pros and cons of having Al Gore as a keynote speaker at the 2010 SHRM Annual Conference in San Diego. Out of curiosity, I went back through my old conference programs to see who SHRM has chosen as keynote speakers in the past and whether Al Gore is truly a controversial choice.
2001 - San Francisco - Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gary Hamel, Nando Parrado
2002 - Philadelphia - Rudy Guiliani, David McCullough, Gordon Bethune, Star Jones
2003 - Orlando - Madeleine Albright, Jim Collins, Tom Morris, Dr. C.K. Prahalad
2004 - New Orleans - Queen Noor, Magic Johnson (replaced by Christopher Reeve), Marcus Buckingham, Scott Livengood
2005 - San Diego - Bill Cosby, Malcolm Gladwell, David Ulrich, Bertice Berry
2006 - Washington, D.C., Gen. Colin Powell, Louis Gerstner, David McCullough, Liz Murray
2007 - Las Vegas - Lance Armstrong, Linda Alvarado, Dan Pink, Erin Gruwell
2008 - Chicago - Sidney Poitier, Patrick Lencioni, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Nancy Giles
2009 - New Orleans - Jack Welch, Earl Graves, John Kotter, Lee Woodruff
2010 - San Diego - Steve Forbes, Al Gore, Angela Herrin (panel), Marcus Buckingham
So, SHRM has chosen a number of conservative voices as prominent speakers (in Giuliani and Powell). One could say Al Gore is the first political person from the other side of the aisle in over 10 years. Is it really that controversial?
- 3 comments • Category: Al Gore, keynote speakers, SHRM
- Share on Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, Reddit
3 comments
"one could say Al Gore is the first political person from the other side of the aisle in over 10 years."
-Did you forget Madeleine Albright?
by Anonymous on January 25, 2010 at 8:35 AM. #
Fair point. If we want to be specific, we could probably put Schwarzkopf, Guiliani, Powell, and Forbes to the right, and Albright and Gore on the left.
by Matthew Stollak on January 25, 2010 at 10:24 AM. #
What does it matter who speaks. SHRM has proven to be year after year less and less effective. The organization has showed a rapid decline in membership also evidence by the number of members who attend their annual conference. Thus the reaching out to India to draw in new members. Human Resources needs to be restructured starting with SHRM. Smaller organizations of late have added more positive guidance and have helped the struggling HR community far more than SHRM.
by Anonymous on January 25, 2010 at 10:31 AM. #